Olympic Cushions for Woolsack

I have finally and belately got to work on my Woolsack Cushions. The Woolsack project at http://www.facebook.com/groups/woolsack2012/ aims to: … “make a cushion from British Wool as a personal gift for each athlete competing in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games”

Getting the loom empty was the first challenge, knitting a lace shawl for a new baby in the family ate some more time, but finally I’m properly underway. SOme of the wool is shetland contributed to the Woolsack project by a smallholder near Buxton, the bluey grey colours are especially nice. The dark brown is from a huge Zwartbles fleece ( nice pictures at this site http://beechhay.com/sheep.asp ) and the white from shetland and various unknown breeds of sheep that I had samples of.

Rosie "minding" the cleaned Zwartbles fleece

Washing the fleece is the first step – not helped my Rosie who thinks that she is so beautifully colour coordinated with the Zwartbles wool, that it’s HERS!

New weaving for Woolsack Cushions (top)

But I finally parted Rosie from her woolly bed, and got weaving, the pattern is supposed to be a little more star shaped, but we’ll see how it washes. And whether it looks better from the top or bottom. I’ve roughly 2 cushion lengths done now, 2 or 3 to go and hope to get them to the Cheshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers stuffing event.